Tesla's first-quarter deliveries miss sharply, shares plunge nearly 5 percent

Shares of Tesla (TSLA) tumbled as the electric car maker reported a sharp drop in deliveries in the first quarter. The Q1 delivery report comes after Tesla warned in January that its vehicle production growth rate would be "significantly lower" than in 2023.

Tesla delivered 386,810 vehicles worldwide in the first quarter, well below Bloomberg's estimate of 449,080. Tesla produced 433,371 vehicles, also below the estimate of 452,976.

Tesla's mass deliveries in the first quarter were down sharply from the fourth quarter, when it delivered 484,000 units. But even more worrisome for investors was the year-over-year decline in Tesla's first-quarter deliveries compared to last year's first quarter, which saw 423,000 units delivered. Tesla's first-quarter numbers represent the first annual decline in deliveries since 2020.

Tesla shares closed down 4.9% on Tuesday.

"While we expected a poor first quarter, this is an unexplainable unmitigated disaster," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note shortly after the report was released." We think this is a seminal moment in the Tesla story, and the resonance has to be turned around to reverse the poor Q1 performance. Otherwise, there are clearly darker days ahead, which could disrupt Tesla's long-term growth."

Looking at the various model lines, Tesla says it produced 412,376 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and delivered 369,783. Tesla reported production of 20,995 and deliveries of 17,027 "other models," which now include the Cybertruck and the more expensive Model S and Model X vehicles.

"The discrepancy between deliveries and production implies an incremental stock of around 46,000 units, which confirms that there may be serious demand issues in addition to known production bottlenecks (Freimont and Berlin)," Emmanuel Rosner of Deutsche Bank wrote in a note following the release of the report. This confirms that in addition to the known production bottlenecks (Fremont and Berlin), there may also be serious demand problems.

Tuesday's delivery report comes after Tesla raised the price of its popular Model Y SUV by $1,000 in all three configurations on Monday. Tesla did the same in China, raising the price of the Model Y by 5,000 yuan ($675) to an aggregate price of $304,900 for the long range version, and by 5,000 yuan to $368,900 for the performance version.

"Deutsche Bank's Rosner added: "Although the company recently raised prices in the US and China as previously announced, we think it may have to do the same, creating further downside risk to ASPs in the second half of the year.

Tesla also revealed that it will announce its first-quarter results on Tuesday, April 23, after the close of business.

Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can find more information on Twitter respond in singing Instagramfirst (of multiple parts)Concerned about himThe

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